Rioja D'Nero

After a carboy miscalculation in my favor I found myself, after crushes and secondaries these past weeks and weekend, with 3 empty carboys. I took my winter kit budget and bought 3 juice buckets instead.

Wanted to to do a Rioja style blend, 2 valdepena(tempranillo) + 1 grenach, but pickings were slimmer than a few weeks ago and no grenach. Everything else available was the usual suspects, so I decided on something completely different black malvasia. From my short research this was used in tuscany for blending before cab sauv became more popular.

So I have a rioja/tuscan(tempranillo/black malvasia) blend. Being that I live in south philadelphia and inspired by another thread of @mainshipfred I will call this Rioja D'Nero.

Picked up these buckets sunday morning, two were fizzing away already, combined them in 20gl fermenter, OG 1.082, hit with k-meta. Created a starter with Rc212 and pitched Sunday night. Monday after adding nutrients at 1.040 forgot to put frozen water bottles in to slow and cool, SG is 1.006 this evening.

Missed 3rd of sugar depletion due to gravity dropping so fast. Hope this doesn't stall like a few others have experience.

Aw man your in for a treat! The AIO immediately bumps up your winemaking to a another level. Get any headspace eliminators too? I bought 2 and use em very frequently.
I actually feel bad for other amateur winemakers who are unaware of the AIO. I brought it up to Drew at Philly Homebrew and another shop and theyd never heard of it. They might benefit from ordering a few for the shops. I'd bet soon enough they'd be flying off the shelves and then be able to cut a deal with Steve and expand. I wonder if Steve has tried to work directly with any Brew Shops already?
It's basically perfect and does it ALL IN ONE tool. I haven't filtered with it yet. But have used it on demijohns- which isn't recommended. Just properly drilled out holes in a #11 bung and worked great.
It was gifted to me this past past year- the best 34th birthday present I could have ever hoped for!

Both my merlot and syrah both at 0.994 this morning. Used my new AIO and stainless steel strainer to rack the merlot into a carboy and used my new press to press the rest of the juice out, both worked great, will be pressing the syrah after work.

I brought it up to Drew at Philly Homebrew and another shop and theyd never heard of it.

Click to expand...

When I was in West last week I mentioned it to Jimmy, he looked it up, I told him I was ordering one. He asked for feedback after I used it, so next time you're in and see him, let him know your opinion.

Both my merlot and syrah both at 0.994 this morning. Used my new AIO and stainless steel strainer to rack the merlot into a carboy and used my new press to press the rest of the juice out, both worked great, will be pressing the syrah after work.

Click to expand...

Sounds like you're in good shape operation-wise. What was your yield on the merlot?

Now that the fall harvest is close to over, I have a shot at getting a deal on a press and crusher. We'll see if it comes through, but at least I'll be set for the spring if it does.

Sounds like you're in good shape operation-wise. What was your yield on the merlot?

Now that the fall harvest is close to over, I have a shot at getting a deal on a press and crusher. We'll see if it comes through, but at least I'll be set for the spring if it does.

Click to expand...

Im just finishing up with the syrah press right now, as soon as im done im going to check yeild, i do know that for the exact same amount of grapes tje merlot yeilded quite a bit more for some reason but seems a little light in color, the syrah yeild is less but is a really dark rich purple right now. Im just having a break from cleaning up after press, ill post yeild amounts soon.